Sitting in the toy room at eight years old, I could hear their deafening words. Crying, cursing and crazy are all words that describe the seemingly endless fights.  I felt protected on the bottom shelf of my giant blue and pink Barbie dollhouse.  I squeezed my small body into the even smaller space.  The toy room with the old, blue, spotted carpet, where I lived my childhood, was frigid, cold and the Barbie house felt like ice.   My body went numb from the icy dollhouse.  I didn’t know I could press my eyes together that tightly or that my hands could cover my ears that securely.  No matter how hard I squeezed or how hard I pressed, I could still hear my father stomping around, throwing TV remotes and clenching his fists so tightly that they turned red as my mother chucked lampshades, shattered plates and slapped walls.  The violence they had with one another, increasing worsened as the days dragged on. 

That particular day started like every other, waking up late in the morning after the sun was shining brightly through my window.  I walked down the brown-carpeted steps and found my parents arguing about money in a hushed tone.  The conflict continued as I poured myself a bowl of Princess Lucky Charms cereal.  I took another journey to my brother’s room on the second floor to wake him up for the day.  His empty feeling was shared by my sister and me.  We felt abandoned and only had each other.  I ate my dry cereal on the edge of his bed as he told me what we were going to do.  “Feed and walk the calves, chop and stack wood, pick up sticks and green walnuts, then mow the lawn” which was a typical Sunday for the Bird kids.  I finished my cereal and walked back down the steps where my parents were still disagreeing.  The first hour of my day, I spent in the playroom where I let my outdoor cats inside, set up my Barbie dollhouse with everything I had, and brushed my dolls’ hair.  It wouldn’t be as fun as usual since my sister wasn’t home to play, but I would make do.  That’s when it happened.  I heard my father scream to my beloved mother, “You’re a piece of dirt!”  He was a bitter, hostile man, and I know he will never change. My mother was never fond of my father and was humiliated by him more times than there are stars in the sky. These battles were an everyday thing, but they never happened so early in the day.  They didn’t usually fight in the morning.  Usually, they fought just at night when they thought my siblings and I were fast asleep in bed. 

Everything in our home had been thrown at least once.  From big, full, gallon milk jugs to my white, wood, homemade dollhouse from first grade.  At this moment, I was more horrified than usual.  I don’t know if it was because my sister wasn’t there for me to bury my face into or because I no longer could understand their words over all the crying, screaming, and throwing.  My father was like an abusive tyrant; he didn’t care of anybody except himself and always had to be in control.  He walked out the door that night and never looked back.  The old, red, front door in our big, cold breezeway was slammed so hard that I swear the house shook for days.  He left me broken, damaged, and feeling unimportant. 

Our home changed.  My sister stopped playing with our Barbies and our yellow haired Polly Pockets.  My brother became a fire fighter and was rarely home.  My mom worked third shift and went to school full time, and I spent my evenings looking out my cold, window into the dark, starless, cloudy sky every night for hours, in hopes that he wouldn’t come home.  Mom put locks on all of the bedroom and bathroom doors and put a deadbolt on our garage door.  We never bought more calves after we raised and butchered the four we had had.   My life became a rollercoaster.  Everything changed, and I knew that we would never be the same family again.